"I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that," Perdue said. "You want people who don't worry about the next election."

"So what to do? To solve the serious problems facing our country, we need to minimize the harm from legislative inertia by relying more on automatic policies and depoliticized commissions for certain policy decisions. In other words, radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic."

This is like that right direction / wrong direction question. It tells you nothing about why.

If liberals want things to be more liberal at the same time conservatives feel the opposite, then you get low satisfaction numbers. It can be bad government or a strongly split nation when both parties are sharing power.

Both bases are deeply dissatisfied and as well as those leaning either way, but there is no mandate to be discerned from it.

He says why look at Europe's failed states. And, then he mentioned ours. Michigan. California. And, at least one other. With economies further down the toilet than Ireland, Greece, and Spain, combined.

"All the Europeans have to do is let Greece default."

Well, in all defaults, all you owe are pennies on the dollar. After bankruptcy you get to go all over again ...

We're in for a rough ride.

And, I still think Obama is just staying out of the path of the debris.

While no one on the republican side talks much about financial failures LOOMING UP. They talk about canceling Roe. Then, either building a fence. Or allowing in a whole new network of voters from Mexico.

The year that it headed down was 1999 when we saw that the roaring 90's were over.

The consequences of our New World Order included closing down the American economic miracle so that the Chinese economic miracle could take over.

The Dot Com bubble was losing its steam then, and our governors initiated a Housing bubble to replace mask our lost jobs and lost savings with building real estate developments which drew the savings of the world here to create a false steam that would evaporate overnight in 2008.

Absolutely nothing to reverse the Chinese ascension and American collapse has been done, especially by Obama who has done everything he can to finish us off.

I have to give that NC governor a partial pass. I don't think she was recommending or suggesting elections be suspended. She was just doing some wishful thinking out loud and wishing for a magic wand and a magic timeout. That said, I am pretty sure she is a prototypical librul dope.

"If I'm reading the data points correctly there are no Clinton numbers, nor any Carter numbers." Ignorance-is-bliss, could you explain? Maybe I'm reading the graph wrong. Doesn't it run from the 70s through the present?

It is a weird graph. Not clear what the question was that was asked to respondents. It appears to be general govenrment, not related to the White House directly (although that must be a big component of it).

Yes, but the data points are very sparse before 2000. ( On my computer I can see the individual points in certain years. Even if you don't see those, you should be able to note that the graph has straight segments for multiple year stretches before 2000 )

Do you know what statistics and graphs do? They make people's eyes glaze over.

For a time I believed that we'd see a "Ross Perot" jumping out of the woodwork. But ya know what? A "Ross Perot" type wouldn't waste the money.

And, either Perry or Mitt are gonna be fun for Obama to run against. He's not going to have to do any heavy lifting. (With the fireworks ahead in Europe ... Obama may even decline to do debates.) Presidents can get away with this ... Obama can say he's seen enough debates, already.

He will do "fund raisers" though. That's like Jerry Lewis doing a "telethon." It raises money like nobody's business.

While Mitt, sooner or later, is going to be asked about the Mormon's "funny underwear."

Let alone his dad's famous remark that he had been brainwashed.

What exactly are "flip-flops" ... except corrections for having been "brainwashed" into one political "wave." And, then trying to find another one.

It's like missing slippers. You keep looking ... because you know they are there "somewhere." (But you get outsmarted by your dog.)

We had been sold out early on by the Clintons for campaign cash. The Arkansas guy fully understood what Sam Walton had wrought down in Bentonville.

Their arose a tacit agreement to let the industrial expertise and capital investment leave the USA in exchange for a piece of the billions in currency flows among allies all over the globe from Hong Kong to London.

The American Middle class had never been betrayed for bribes from foreign wealth before and still doesn't want to believe it.

As Herman Cain says, we need to first identify the problem, and then solve it.

"If I'm reading the data points correctly there are no Clinton numbers, nor any Carter numbers." Ignorance-is-bliss, could you explain? Maybe I'm reading the graph wrong. Doesn't it run from the 70s through the present?

The graph is essentially meaningless for any time before 2002. There's one data point from the height of Watergate, nothing during Jimmy Carter's presidency, one data point from Reagan's two terms, one data point from George H.W. Bush's term, and nothing during Bill Clinton's two terms as president.

There's a twelve-year stretch without any data. They shouldn't have connected those two data points with a solid line.

I agree that Bev Perdue's unbelievable statement in favor of suspending elections in 2012 is really scary. If she was joking, that's nothing for any politician to joke about. If she wasn't, then words fail me.

But the scariest news today by far is the 20,000 shoulder-launched surface to air missiles that have gone missing from unguarded Libyan military depots. That is, potentially, a lot of shot down airliners.

Does anybody remember Barack Obama getting Republican buy-in on the "kinetic military action" in Libya? Any Republican votes on the War Powers Act? No? Maybe now you Dumbocrats can see why the processes that the US has prior to commiting our military to some adventure are the way they are.

Those stolen missiles were an absolutely foreseeable consequence of taking down Qaddafi. Maybe if the decision had gone through some serious vetting and not simply been made up by Barack Obama as he went along, perhaps the US would have thought twice about it.

Those stolen missiles were an absolutely foreseeable consequence of taking down Qaddafi. Maybe if the decision had gone through some serious vetting and not simply been made up by Barack Obama as he went along, perhaps the US would have thought twice about it.

Thank you for making that point. We can hope that the stolen weapons don't show up, but if they do, we won't forget why.

Those stolen missiles were an absolutely foreseeable consequence of taking down Qaddafi. Maybe if the decision had gone through some serious vetting and not simply been made up by Barack Obama as he went along, perhaps the US would have thought twice about it.

How hard would it have been for Obama to devote 1/25th of the resources loaned to NATO against Libya to eliminating the supply depots with the shoulder launched missiles? Don't tell me we didn't know he had them. That looks like a mistake that will pay back, big time, for decades. I have often worried about what these Islamic radicals would do if they could get their hands on such weapons in numbers, and sit under the approach pattern to Hartsfield or O'Hare. You could lose 20 aircraft before others could be diverted.

Sofa King said...Wow. That is approaching revolutionary levels.========================Yeah. And right now, a majority of people think beyond the two Parties, the whole US system is broken and corrupted.

The highest satisfaction that their country is going in the right direction was found by Pew Global to be with Chinese citizens. 83%.Few lawyers. Standard of living doubled, 80 million new jobs created since 1997. Whole ports and Empire State Building sized projects built in barely a year's time from concept to finish. Modern, nimble Constitution done in 1982. Low crime, high innovation. Second only to the now-stalled US in scientific papers, new patents. Moving up there too, fast.

I agree that Bev Perdue's unbelievable statement in favor of suspending elections in 2012 is really scary. If she was joking, that's nothing for any politician to joke about. If she wasn't, then words fail me.

So what to do? To solve the serious problems facing our country, we need to minimize the harm from legislative inertia by relying more on automatic policies and depoliticized commissions for certain policy decisions. In other words, radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic. (remainder behind TNR pay wall).

I like that: "depoliticized commissions". Wonder how they expect to do that? And to keep politics out, like we did with Fannie May and Freddie Mac, both of which turned into high paying sinecures for Democratic stalwarts, as the two headed into the equivalent of bankruptcy. Sure. Apparently Orzag hasn't heard of regulatory capture.

My thoughts right now are that the Democrats in power are starting to panic. If they don't get a miracle, they may lose all three branches of government in 14 months. And, they may not get Congress back for a generation. And, maybe not the Presidency either - anyone working for Obama, Harry Reid, or Nancy Pelosi is presumptively tainted, and likely corrupt if part of the Obama Administration.

This dissatisfaction with our government is most likely to harm the party of big government, that has grown such from maybe 19% to about 25% from the time that the Dems retook Congress in 2006 to the present. $4 trillion so far to supposedly recover from the recession (caused in a big part by the housing policies of the Democrats), and much of it either being squandered, or padding the pockets of Democratic constituents.

It's so painfully obvious to anyone familiar with the breed that Obama is pure grifter. Cause that's what a grifter does, he sells hope. What a nation of marks we've become as more and more lead soft protected lives. No blows, no learning from them. So when a grifter came along selling hope we were easy pickin's.

From 2000 to 2002, there was a confluence of factors that started the downward slide --

The dot.com bubble burst.

The built-in structural drags on the economy from oversized government began asserting themselves.

The rejection of election results and attempted coup by a psychotic Al Gore, together with the psychotic melt-down of the left.

And the final tipping point -- Osama bin Laden was successful after all in his ultimate plan to destabilize the American society, economy, and politics.

As if that were not enough, now, with governmental drags on the ecomony threatening to sink us entirely, the response by Obama, Dems, and the worm-like establishment Republicans is to smash holes in the hull of the ship to let the water out.

And the people -- whose government supposedly is of the people, by the people and for the people -- are powerless to do anything about it. Our overlords are hellbent on taking us all to ruin.

But what makes it even worse, is that there are still some 20 percent of the population who think that everything is fine and dandy.

Our disgust has now surpassed the anti-government anger brought on by a simple robbery and a whole lot of lying about Watergate . . . but that is not surprising given the deeply embedded corruption of the present administration.

Many of the commenters here are starting to fester. Seems like a boil that needs lancing. Cedarford, AP, and others keep trying, but their lances are short and weak. We need a strong, smart anti-libertarian up here! Who among us can rise to the challenge?

You're right. There are not enough data points between 1986 and 2001. But if there were I would doubt that the two lines would have crisscrossed. I would expect some up and down but not to the extent of the trend line starting around 2005.

My thoughts right now are that the Democrats in power are starting to panic. If they don't get a miracle, they may lose all three branches of government in 14 months. And, they may not get Congress back for a generation.

Or they may get it back four years later. The last time Republicans controlled every branch of government it took them all of six months to betray the Contract with America ideals of small government. I see little reason to hope the party leadership has learned its lesson.

I agree that Bev Perdue's unbelievable statement in favor of suspending elections in 2012 is really scary. If she was joking, that's nothing for any politician to joke about. If she wasn't, then words fail me.

But the scariest news today by far is the 20,000 shoulder-launched surface to air missiles that have gone missing from unguarded Libyan military depots. That is, potentially, a lot of shot down airliners.

Excellent points. The Perdue line I've heard from a few people here, presumably with the sarc tag on, but this is the first time a Demo has said it in public.

As for the missles, I don't doubt Barry really believed it would be "Days, not weeks" and it would be all over. Your point about foreseeable consequences is valid, but I'll bet they'll be spun as unintended consequences from the media.

Carol_Herman said...

Okay, edutcher ...

I took your stupid link.

It gives FDR's "poll ratings" starting in 1941 ... HELLO!

1941. With the "Day that shall live in Infamy" fame.

Don't get nasty.

First, it starts in July '41, when the peacetime draft (first in US history) was quite unpopular, so you get some perspective, although finding figures for pre-WWII are a little tougher.

Second, figures for FDR aren't available for his first term and this, from Roper, is the clearest. His numbers, to me at least, seem pretty steady, at least until Admiral Yamamoto's fly-by.

The DOE, at WH urging, provided half a billion in loans to a company whose financials were screaming inevitable default. That's just one incident.

The gummint also lost hundreds of millions of dollars on the bank and auto bailouts. Don't post links to cherry-pick how certain financial institutions are cash cows for the Fed now; in toto they're both big losers for taxpayers.

And yet Republicans will step in and solve all the problems... how, exactly? By re-emphasising that gay people are second class citizens, as Santorum wants to do? By doubling-down on the War on Drugs and War on Terror, reinforcing the police state that has been constructed around them? By giving payoffs to the interest groups in the Republican camp, rather than the ones supporting the Democrats?

Despite being dissatisfied, Americans will still vote for Obama and Team Democrat. The opposition, except for Ron Paul and Gary Johnson, are all just big-government big-spending anti-freedom types. They are SCARY!

This all started with the lefty meltdown into Bush derangement syndrome after the 2000 elections. When Al Gore withdrew his concession, he severely damaged the nation. Then Vice President Nixon served the nation by not doing this in 1960.

gadfly said...Our disgust has now surpassed the anti-government anger brought on by a simple robbery and a whole lot of lying about Watergate . . . but that is not surprising given the deeply embedded corruption of the present administration.

==============Don't get the idea that all this magically happened when Obama took office.

And if only a conservative true believer is elected within a couple of years "everything will be fine and ducky again with a little Reagan magic and another tax cut".

This systemic breakdown of America has Administrations of both Parties involved, and the ovvereach and rot goes back to LBJ and involves leaders in both Parties and the short-term interests of American Bankers, Wall Streeters, and Nultinationals over the interests of the US People.Worst of all, it has roots going back to the US Constitution..now badly antiquated compared to the nimble, modern Constitutions of many of our international competitors.

Crack, I had pretty low expectations with either Obama or McCain (Although, I figured McCain would be more of a fiscal hawk). And things have turned out as I thought.

Many thought there would be a recovery by now. There might have been, if we controlled spending and got our shit in order over the last couple of years. But we didn't and things really won't improve until we do so.

And if only a conservative true believer is elected within a couple of years "everything will be fine and ducky again with a little Reagan magic and another tax cut".

Advanced countries like S Korea, Germany, China etc are investing heavily into education and infrastructure, and the dipshit Republican right in this country is busting unions, laying off/firing 300,000 teachers, and trying to cutoff Pell grants, job training, and letting 100 year old infrastructure continue to rot and erode. And they're damn proud to tell you how fucking stupid they are!

And if only a conservative true believer is elected within a couple of years "everything will be fine and ducky again with a little Reagan magic and another tax cut".

Advanced countries like S Korea, German, China etc are investing heavily into education and infrastructure, and the dipshit Republican right in this country is busting unions, laying off/firing 300,000 teachers, and trying to cutoff Pell grants, job training, and letting 100 year old infrastructure continue to rot and erode. And they're damn proud to tell you how fucking stupid they are!

Last I looked, the only thing union teachers were teaching was PC and how to put a rubber on a banana.

As for infrastructure, GodZero said it:

Those jobs just weren't shovel-ready.

So the money went into the pockets of politicians and union bosses.

PS Red Chinese "investment in infrastructure" is producing a housing bubble bigger than the one we had 3 years ago.

But the scariest news today by far is the 20,000 shoulder-launched surface to air missiles that have gone missing from unguarded Libyan military depots. That is, potentially, a lot of shot down airliners.

This is the scariest thing I've heard in a long time. It's Pandora's box; it's doubtless too late to retrieve most of them now. 9/11 pales in comparison to what's possible-- not just conceivable, actually possible-- now. Hundreds-- thousands-- of Pan Am Flight 103. My god.

Of course, as we now know, there's been no adult at the wheel. (There've been some adults buzzing around, but no one where the buck stops, no one truly accountable.) I've dreaded ugly things happening under O's watch; this is the kind of thing I most dreaded. What the hell does O care? He got Osama! And there's important golfing & campaigning to do.

This is bleak, bleak, bleak stuff. In a way much bleaker than all the damage to the economy O has done-- because, if we're lucky, future administrations & congresses may reverse the worst of those regulations, mandates, bills. Our economy, god willing, will rebound at some point.

Thousands of portable heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles in the hands of Al Qaeda & related terrorists, now, as we speak: that nightmare is a fact, there's little we or future administrations can do about it. (Short of a much intensified world "war on terror" which has become impracticable & for which there is little appetite, and which probably wouldn't be enough anyway-- these things are easily stored, hidden, transported, and handled, unlike WMD.)

It's horrible. I haven't felt this anxious about national & international security since the dark days after 9/11-- and this is actually a much worse prospect. I wish I could be reassured, somehow.

"Advanced countries like S Korea, Germany, China etc are investing heavily into education and infrastructure, and the dipshit Republican right in this country is busting unions, laying off/firing 300,000 teachers, and trying to cutoff Pell grants, job training, and letting 100 year old infrastructure continue to rot and erode. And they're damn proud to tell you how fucking stupid they are!"

I had to quote your whole run-on sentence back to you. How much fucking money are we supposed to spend on education? We spend more than ANYONE save Luxembourg and it has given us a bloated educational system that doesn't produce the quality of students produced in other countries. WHY? What's the definition of insanity you asshat?

yeah, the ones they change every week or so to justify giving away more stuff to more people.

douchenozzle.

=================The CEO of miniature-minded people says this without understanding the nature of our many rival's more modern and purposeful Constitutions, geared to the realities of the contemporary world.

China's Constitution dates to 1982 and contains sections to advance modernization, gaining of industries with all deliberate speed.S Korea's dates from 1987.Brazils was completely rewritten and presented in 1988.Japan is having a vigorous debate about it's 1946 Constitution already being too archaic to be effective anymore in a rapidly moving world. The vote on revising it was made in 2005, but turned down on the theory that Article 9 obligates the US to defend Japan.

Malaysia 1963

India created an easy to amend Constitition updated by vote every year. The most recent form dates from 2011.

Last major revision and modification to the German Constitution was in 2006.

France - Most recent full new Constitution was in 1958. Scheduled to be rewritten at the 60 year mark to incorporate the changes to France and the World since then.

The world marches on, able to become faster and nimbler when comms, money transfers, technology instantly diffuses, any goods are days away be air or continental ground transport, weeks by ship...and any factory can be removed from one nation like the US and rebuilt in a nimble place like China in 3 months.

To say that we can compete saddled with a deliberately slow-moving system that counts on paralysis and resolvable disputes cooked up by wise men, but men who wore powder wigs and tromped through manure filled streets in a remote, untouchable corner of the world - is backward thinking folly. America needs major change. Eben to the Good Old Sacred Parchment of our ancient ancestors

We built the most robust and propserous middle class in the world through education and workplace representation. And it's being dismantled before our eyes through globalization and outright greed. Cutting education and access to it should be the last thing we should be doing.

Fighting garage mahal wrote: Cutting education and access to it should be the last thing we should be doing.

Denying educational and professional access to the better qualified person, regardless of skin color, is a waste of resources, and also represents a broken promise. Our country needs the best of the best, not the second best based on historical grievances.

To say that we can compete saddled with a deliberately slow-moving system that counts on paralysis and resolvable disputes cooked up by wise men, but men who wore powder wigs and tromped through manure filled streets in a remote, untouchable corner of the world - is backward thinking folly. America needs major change. Eben to the Good Old Sacred Parchment of our ancient ancestors.

I disagree for a number of reasons. For one, consistency has benefits as far as planning goes. If you know the rules of the game, businesses can plan much better for the future, and are thus more willing to commit to expansion - which is why the government screwing up the bankruptcy system to bail out the UAW was so bad.

Furthermore, gridlock can be good. We would likely not be having the hearings on Fast and Furious, etc. if we had a parliamentary system. We are having them precisely because the Republicans took the House in 2010. And, right now, it appears to have been an abuse of power and abrogation of our laws far more egregious than any most of us have seen in our lives.

I think that this is why I am conservative and you are liberal. I don't want to change things just to change them, but only to make them better, and you appear to want to, regardless of whether or not they would improve the situation over the long haul.

We built the most robust and propserous middle class in the world through education and workplace representation. And it's being dismantled before our eyes through globalization and outright greed. Cutting education and access to it should be the last thing we should be doing.

garbage, you ignorant slut!! We're not cutting access to education nor cutting it. We've been screwing it up since at least the middle '70s.

If we want to have an educated public we need to go back to the subjects and the way we taught in from around WWII to about 1970. No PC crap. No emphasis on 'diversity'. No multi-culti sociology. No extraneous crap from K to HS graduation. None.

No "feel good you're all equally valuable" stuff. Reward kids for what they learn, not for existing. We absolutely need to give everyone an equal opportunity, a real one, but stuffing them with Lefty PC bullshit certainly hasn't worked.

And I'll be happy to let unions do their thing *if* they negotiate with those who pay them [in the case of teachers and other public employees that'd be the taxpayers -- make the unions negotiate with a randomly chosen group of taxpayers of size from 15 or so in small communities to 300 or so in large ones. Limit the negotiations to wages and benefits, with no future benefits that aren't fully funded under conservative investing rules and first put into the pay rate then deducted to be put into the investment pool]. And they should never, ever be allowed to negotiate "work rules". If they don't like the work rules, let them find another job.

Oh. And no school administrator should be hired without outside experience in management, and no advanced education degree should consist of courses other than teaching subjects. No more phony "Leadership and Policy" EdDs.

We built the most robust and prosperous middle class in the world through education and workplace representation. And it's being dismantled before our eyes through globalization and outright greed. Cutting education and access to it should be the last thing we should be doing.

What is hilarious here is that the biggest reason for our problems with education is probably workplace representation - of government workers. Eliminate the ability of teachers to organize, prevent modernization, and automatically funnel part of their wages to their union for political purposes, and the school systems will be able to start improving.

Workplace representation was important in the first half maybe of the 20th Century. Since then, it has been a drag on our economy, and is one of the big reasons why a lot of heavy industry moved over seas - the industries that moved or flourished outside the U.S. were precisely the ones that had the highest union membership rates here. Think steel, auto, etc.

No one is really suggesting cutting education, but rather, cutting the increase in spending there. This is one of those slights of hand that liberals are so fond of - calling a reduction in the increase a cut, instead of a smaller increase.

But the problem is, as I pointed out above, that our school systems, thanks to your worker representation, are run for the benefit of the teachers and administrators, and not the students. Until that changes, no amount of additional money is going to help.

The problem I have with polls and graphs like this is that those who are dissatisfied includes both liberals and conservatives, but they don't tell us anything about how it breaks down. You can't tell how many of the dissatisfied will vote for Obama or his opponent(s).

Obama is still raising funds because even though a lot of his donor base is unhappy with his performance, they don't want the GOP to win back the White House.

The cost of a college degree needs to be slashed, it is much too expensive. Most classes need to be mostly taught via computer.

There needs to be a balance between the left and right at the university level. The left has completely taken over our university system and has locked out conservatives from getting academic jobs at the university level. The result is that ordinary non lefty tax payers are subsidizing massive lefty indoctrination of our kids. This has to stop.

Our academia has permitted politics to pollute our university system. We need to figure out how to de-politicize our universities.

I've been driving since 1963, and there hasn't ever been a year that went by without a lot of road and bridge work. Schools are also being built. The money we spend on education is significant. Do you ever stop and think before posting such idiotic statements.

At a dinner party this weekend I proposed a toast to Obama. My hosts were shocked until I explained that Obama had managed to discredit Liberalism, Progressivism, Socialism (or whatever you want to call it) for a generation. You can thank Barack Obama for a sharp right turn in the political direction of the country. The Republicans could not have done this nearly as well.

The Crack MC has it right about fooling yourself being the easiest thing to do.

I also think that Barack is fooling himself. Peter Wehner has an article in Commentary:

I have written before about Obama’s deep, almost desperate, need to portray himself as the opposite of what he is, to conceive of himself in a way that is at odds with reality. We have seen it in all sorts of areas, including claiming himself to be a voice of civility, portraying himself as a champion of bi-partisanship, lecturing others about profligate spending, and saying he is the only responsible “adult” in Washington. Now we see this habit in a new arena – this time, the president as Obama the Stoic, a man so committed to “pressing on” for the cause of social justice he just doesn’t have time to feel sorry for himself. Indeed, he has now decided to sermonize to others not to complain, not to grumble, and to “stop crying.”

I have been working under the assumption that Obama knows that he’d lying, knew he was creating straw men and creating false choices. The thought that he is actually deluding himself and believes what he says is even more disturbing. It means that we don’t have a knave as President, but a delusional fool. That’s dangerous.

It means that we don’t have a knave as President, but a delusional fool. That’s dangerous.

This passage from Suskind's book (blogged here at JustOneMinute) backs up that interpretation:

[Summers and Romer] were concerned by something the president had said in a morning briefing: that he thought the high unemployment was due to productivity gains in the economy. Summers and Romer were startled. "What was driving unemployment was clearly deficient aggregate demand," Romer said. "We wondered where this could have been coming from. We both tried to convince him otherwise. He wouldn't budge." Summers had been focused intently on how to spur demand, and on what might drive a meaningful recovery.... [W]ithout a rise in demand, in Summers's view, nothing else would work.... But productivity?... If Obama felt that 10 percent unemployment was the product of sound, productivity-driven decisions by American business, then short-term government measures to spur hiring were not only futile but unwise. The two economists strained their memory... had they said something he'd misconstrued?... After a month, frustration turned to resignation. "The president seems to have developed his own view," Romer said.

Garage, when the U.S. was at its most robust there was no Department of Education. How could that have been? There was no EPA in the 1950s when the glorious industrial production was at its peak and the skies of Pittsburgh were like those of London in the 19th Century or Shanghai today. There were no OSHA regulations in those days and every single factory was unionized. Notice anything? You cannot have it all ways, comrade.

cford -- Those constitutions you mention are very different from that of the US, which is by far the oldest in the world. Japan's especially so because it was imposed upon a defeated aggressor.

Sweden (1809) and Canada (1867) used to be in second and third place until they promulgated new constitutions in the early 1980s.

There is, however, a profound difference: the US constitution describes how government is to be structured, but recent constitutions all over the world describe what government is to do. Worst of all is that thing in Europe with a "preamble" running well over 100 pages.

In short, they have all been attempts to enshrine the social welfare models and programs now bankrupting nations around the world.

Had the US in recent decades not attempted to follow those other nations along their path of folly by largely ignoring our own constitution we'd be in much better shape today.

The US constitution had some weaknesses during the century or so of centralized, industrialized development, but if you look around we're returning (rather rapidly) to a new era of small-scale, independent operators.

As Hayek said: ...central planning cannot work because it is trying to substitute an individual all-knowing intelligence for a distributed and fragmented system of localized but connected knowledge.

Just like Jefferson's yeoman farmers, and that old 1787 constitution -- which eschews central planning -- looks better and better with each passing month.

No, Obama didn't do that, as he hasn't governed as a liberal, progressive, socialist, (or whatever you want to call it). He's governed as a centrist, capitulating to or willingly serving and promoting the interests of the entrenched interests who control both parties in Washington and who essentially are the government, (i.e., the military/corporate/financial complex). Obama is Bush lite.

Obama has hurt himself and the Democratic Party because he led people to believe and hope that he and the Dems would clean up the shitstorm of wreckage to our country left by eight years of Bush. That Obama has failed even to try to make good on his rhetoric reveals him as a fraud, and hurts the Democratic brand. (I didn't buy his bill of goods.) The Republican brand is already discredited, so we're left with...what?

Nothing. There's no chance of change, as we have a capitalist Politboro running things, and those titularly "in charge" are just stooges for the financial elites. As the independent trader stated frankly on the BBC the other day, "Governments don't run the world, Goldman Sachs does."

But many of the Constitutions written were not of the socialist utopia sort but ones that created a "nation operating manual" that was based on the modern world. That planned on how to compete, take industries and jobs from other nations.

The people that did the rewrites and new Constitutions in other nations not consider the US Constitution for inspiration. To them. it was badly outdated, archaic in some sections, poorly written in others like on war powers, thanks to coordination by national special interest groups nearly impossible to Amend on any urgent matter of great import. Worst, by those factors, enshrines an activist judiciary out of necessity as America's aristocracy because no other mechanism is available to modernize the document unless a Covention is declared. And a necessary activist aristocracy accountable to no one for life once appointed.

I agree nothing significant can pass by the Amending process that has any substantial controversy due to organized special interest groups. The last time that happened was abolition of the poll tax in 1962. So the Constitution ceased to be a living, breathing document a half century ago. (save what a few lawyers dressed in black robes decide for all of us on new Constitution updates).

We are no longer a nimble nation. All decisions are in judicial review and take years longer than our global rivals to do. And we don't know how the High Judges will opine until they leisurely get around to it, which creates great uncertainty and sabotages economic planning by states, private industry.

For example:

1. A highway interconnector has been stalled for 30 years by court challenges in my state.2. From the beginning Obamacare was thought unconstitutional. Back in 2009. The court reviews will finally finish when the oracle of the Highest Jdges declares their leisurely call on the matter in the summer, fall of 2012. After 3 years - all while competitors sprint past us and each American is economically damaged by the uncertainty about Obamacare.

"...nothing significant can pass by the Amending process that has any substantial controversy due to organized special interest groups."

In other words, by citizens acting in their own common interests--democratically--in favor of or opposition to proposed changes to the Constitution.

The Constitution is difficult to amend by design, as ephemeral cultural passions or social crises might otherwise lead to the passage of ill-considered amendments which, once in place, are difficult to rescind. Look at the poor laws that are passed due to ephemeral crises that put us into panic mode, e.g., the U.S. Patriot Act. Although it hasn't been repealed, if it is ever decided that it should be--or if it is ever found to be unconstitutional--it can be repealed easily, whereas it could not be repealed easily if it were an amendment.

Newly released audio contradicts the claims of Perdue’s press team that her call Tuesday for suspending Congressional election was a joke or hyperbole. In the recording, her tone is matter-of-fact and her comments are part of a serious speech.

“Listen to the Governor’s words: She wasn’t joking at all,” North Carolina GOP spokesman Rob Lockwood told The Daily Caller. “The congressional Democrats are wildly unpopular in North Carolina, so she may have been trying to invent a solution to save their jobs from public accountability.”

“If it was a joke, what was the set-up?,” Lockwood adds. “What was the punch-line? Where was the pause for laughter? It took them three hours to say it was a ‘joke,’ but when that flopped it became ‘hyperbole.’ We’ll just call it an unconstitutionally bad idea.”